Music impresario and former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, seen at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2006, has died at age 64 after a battle with cancer. (Vincent Kessler/Reuters)

Malcolm McLaren, the unabashed music impresario and former manager of punk icons the Sex Pistols, has died at the age of 64.

McLaren died in Switzerland Thursday morning after a long battle with mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer, according to his son, Joseph Corré, and his partner, Young Kim.

Corré, who is the son of McLaren and legendary fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, his former girlfriend, declined to give the exact location of his father's death because he said he wanted to avoid a media scrum.

"He was the original punk rocker and revolutionized the world," Corré, who co-founded the lingerie fashion line Agent Provocateur, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

McLaren's body is to be returned to the U.K. for burial.

Owned boutique with Westwood

London-born McLaren enrolled and left a host of art colleges and worked at numerous odd jobs before finding success in the early 1970s operating a clothing boutique with Westwood, his girlfriend and business partner at the time.

The shop — first called Let It Rock and later named Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die and, most famously, SEX — was a gathering place for early aficionados of the nascent punk movement.

McLaren's career as a music manager began with the influential U.S. band the New York Dolls, whom he met while in New York setting up another clothing business.

However, he is best known for assembling British punk icons the Sex Pistols and for his notorious antics to promote and publicize his misfit band.

Provocative promoter

The flamboyant McLaren favoured over-the-top spectacle and publicity-garnering acts of rebellion for the provocative group. These included having them sign their record contract outside of Buckingham Palace and releasing the group's track God Save the Queen in May 1977, around the time that Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Silver Jubilee.

They also were set to play the controversial song live from a barge on the Thames across from the British Parliament. Though McLaren was arrested for the stunt, the press it garnered got him the outcome he wanted: the song shot to the top of the charts.

The band's only album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, was released in 1977. The band had broken up by early 1978, and for years afterward, McLaren fought lead singer John Lydon — better known as the snarling Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten — for copyright and royalties.

Solo success

McLaren subsequently managed other acts, including Adam Ant and Bow Wow Wow, and eventually moved into music-making himself.

He first recorded a single for the documentary The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and went on to have a career writing and releasing his own music that explored a host of different genres, from hip hop to electronica to opera. His albums included Duck Rock, Fans, Waltz Darling and Paris.

More recent credits include hosting radio programs and producing films, including the documentaryFast Food Nation.

Earlier, Les Molloy, identified as McLaren's agent, reported that the punk pioneer had died in New York. However, Corré said Molloy was no longer McLaren's agent and was not authorized to speak for the family.

With files from The Associated Press